Blood Witch Read Free Page A

that our friendship had broken up because she had wanted Cal and he had wanted me. In the past few weeks I had wished again and again that I could talk to her about all that I’d learned. Bree didn’t even know I was adopted. She still thought I was a Rowlands by birth, like Mary K. But Bree was being such a bitch to me now, and I was being cold to her. Oh, well. For now, there was nothing I could do about it. It seemed best not to dwell on what I couldn’t change.
    Mary K. and I checked out and loaded up the car. I stifled a yawn as we climbed back in. The gray, cheerless weather seemed to sap my energy. I wanted to go home and nap before Cal came over.
    “Let’s go down Picketts Road,” said Mary K., adjusting the car’s heater vents to blow right on her. “It’s so pretty, even if it takes longer.”
    “Picketts Road it is,” I said, taking the turn. I preferred this route, too: it was hilly and winding, and there weren’t many houses. People kept horses back here, and though most of the trees were now bare, colorful leaves still littered the ground, like the patterns on an Oriental carpet.
    Up ahead were two cars parked by the side of the road. My eyes narrowed. I recognized them as Matt Adler’s white jeep and Raven Meltzer’s beat-up black Peugeot . . . parked right next to each other on a road few people used. That was odd. I hadn’t even realized that they spoke to each other. I looked around but didn’t see either one of them.
    “Interesting,” I muttered.
    “What?” said my sister, fiddling with the radio dial.
    “That was Matt Adler’s jeep and Raven Meltzer’s Peugeot,” I said.
    “So?”
    “They’re not even friends,” I said, shrugging. “What are their cars doing out here?”
    Mary K. pursed her lips. “Gosh, maybe they killed someone and are burying the body,” she said sarcastically.
    I smirked at her. “It’s just kind of unusual, that’s all. I mean, Matt is Jenna’s boyfriend, and Raven . . .” Raven doesn’t care if a guy is someone’s boyfriend, I finished silently. Raven just liked to get guys, chew them up, and spit them out.
    “Yeah, but they both do this Wicca stuff with you, right?” said Mary K., flipping down the sun visor mirror to check her appearance. It was pretty obvious that she didn’t want to look me in the eye. She’d made it very clear that she disapproved of “this Wicca stuff,” as she liked to call it.
    “But Raven’s not in our coven,” I said. “She and Bree started their own coven.”
    “Because you and Bree aren’t talking anymore?” she asked pointedly, still looking in the mirror.
    I bit my lip. I still hadn’t explained very much about Bree and Cal to my family. They had noticed, of course, that Bree and I weren’t hanging out and that Bree wasn’t calling the house nine times a day. But I’d mumbled something about Bree being busy with a new boyfriend, and no one had called me on it till now.
    “That’s part of it,” I said with a sigh. “She thought she was in love with Cal. But he wanted to be with me. So Bree decided the hell with me.” It hurt to say it out loud.
    “And you chose Cal,” my sister said, but her tone was forgiving.
    I shook my head. “It’s not like I chose Cal over her. Actually, she chose him over me first. Besides, I didn’t tell Bree she had to get out of my life or anything. I still wanted to be friends.”
    Mary K. flipped the visor back up. “Even though she loved your boyfriend.”
    “She thought she loved him,” I said, getting prickly. “She didn’t even know him, though. She still doesn’t. Anyway, you know how she is about guys. She likes the thrill of the chase and the conquest much more than any long-term thing. Use them and lose them. And Cal didn’t want to be with her.” I sighed again. “It’s complicated.”
    Mary K. shrugged.
    “You think I shouldn’t go out with Cal just because Bree wanted him?” I asked. My knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.
    “No, not